Wheel of Misfortune

This last weekend was pleasant yet unremarkable. I spent some quality time with the gf which included a screening of Eclipse which was easily the least God-awful of the Twilight movies to date. But that may be due to the fact that there was a blindingly bright exit sign adjacent to the screen at the De Pere Cinema Café that diverted my attention away from K.Stew’s or T. Laut’s inability to act or express any emotion whatsoever on the big screen, which in my opinion, probably helped the movie. In any case, it will be my turn to pick the next movie so I hope Jess is excited to see the new TRON.

The most exciting thing to take place last weekend was our tryouts to be on Wheel of Fortune. The Wheel of Fortune mystery bus travelled through Green Bay last Friday to find contestants for the show. The setup was like this; you filled out an application, then they randomly selected names to play a mock game on stage. Every person that got picked had to do a brief interview on stage with Marty, the mock host, at which point they played one puzzle and competed for door prizes. They crammed in as many people as they could for an hour.

The idea is that they were looking for exciting, interesting locals to be contestants on the show, hence the short interview. It did not matter if you solved the puzzle or not. The most interesting people would get selected for another audition in Wisconsin, and then finally/hopefully be an actual player on the show in California.

It was clear within about 5 minutes that the audience did NOT grasp this concept. Marty started every interview with “tell me something interesting about yourself.” The universal response was a mumbled “I worked at this place or have been retired for x many years, been married for y many years, and have z amount of children.” The other common response interest was a love for the Green Bay Packers.

First, that’s great that you’re married and have kids, that is arguably way more important than anything going on in my life, but the idea was to say something interesting to separate yourself from the herd. Secondly, no shit you love the Packers. Everybody in Green Bay loves the Packers.

The only original interview came from this 85 year old guy, who was visibly confused and didn’t know where he was. He was by far the most memorable because Marty had to ask him three different times if he was ready to play Wheel of Fortune where he eventually shrugged yes and shuffled off to the rest of the contestants. I can’t wait for dementia to kick in for me, it looks like a real hoot.

I was so pissed they didn’t call my name. I had the perfect setup in mind. First I would talk about my undefeated kickball team, then I would mention my expertise in Wheel of Fortune from my hours of practice from playing the 1992 Super Nintendo version, and then finally mention my dog named Cheese.

Marty would say, “That’s’ a funny name, how did you pick that?” Then I’d say that I wanted a Wisconsin specific name, but naming him Beer Belly just sounded cruel. Buh dum pish! Cue audience laughter annnnnnnnnnd that’s a wrap. Get this guy on the show asap.

I would have made a hell of a contestant. I envisioned me and Pat Sajak going out for beers after the show, I really think we would have that kind of rapport. But my name was never called and therefore I am forced to use my great jokes in this blog instead of for cash money prizes. Bummer, maybe next year.